


mouth full of white lies

by x (ordinary)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Noir, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Femdom, M/M, Memory Alteration, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Oral Sex, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 08:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4739810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Rutherford is getting a little too close to the truth when a dame walks into his office, pleading for his help. Her name is Elyse Trevelyan, and her goal is to keep him from discovering the truth about all the red lyrium showing up in Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mouth full of white lies

**Author's Note:**

> this is an uncomfortable read; heed the tags, full spoiler warnings at the end!
> 
> set in a vague noir 40s-50s US port town with some vague differences. roommates/apartments are more common, lyrium exists rather than 'normal world' drugs, and everyone retains their crazy as fucking shit names. so, perhaps, more urban noir fantasy, genre wise!

**0.**

"Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her," Cullen says, glancing sidelong at them, dark circles under his eyes. "Maybe I’ll die trying."

 

**i.**

He first loves her on a Sunday, calloused fingers twined around hers as they stumble into her apartment. It smells like cinnamon and sharpness, and has little to no decoration. Elyse leans in close to press a kiss to his neck, smiling against it fondly, pulling him to her room.

“Why, Detective Rutherford,” she croons, leaning back to raise an eyebrow at Cullen’s now-red face, her voice husky and low. “Is that a _pistol_ in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

He laughs, nervous even with her now, and stays that way as her pencil skirt hike up around her hips, as she slides an inquisitive manicured hand into his slacks, as her pale grey eyes glitter with almost-mirth.

He’s not sure how they got to here, or why he’s so giddy at the thought, but Elyse kisses him gently and rocks against him till he’s nearly delirious. She’s beautiful and makes him feel good, and in the end, he breathes her name like it’s a confessional.

She laughs, breathless, but her freckled cheeks don’t blush.

(It should have been a sign.)

 

**a.**

“Oh, you worry so  _much_ , Livius. All you need to do is reassure Cory that I have this  _completely_  under control. The pact will remain intact, as will the trade. There’s no need for drastic measures when I’ll do.” She toys with the idea of hanging up on him, just for the satisfaction. Instead, her voice turns to ice as she reminds him: "I know the Mafia makes good on it debts, Livius, and I am  _owed_. Don't interfere."

Elyse slams the phone into the receiver, and whirl to face her reflection, smiling widely. All black dress, with legs up to _there_. Red hair, red lips, a cigarette in a holder and a vial of diluted lyrium for Rutherford’s drink in her purse.

He didn't stand a chance. 

 

**ii.**

Cigarette smoke, thick and cloying, swirls around them in the aftermath. She exhales and blows a smoke ring upwards, and it comes to settle around her temple like a wispy halo. She looks radiant in the sunlight filtering in through his blinds, ethereal and radiant. Her naked skin glows atop her black satin sheets, and the desire to ravish her again is, strangely, nonexistent. 

Instead, Cullen reaches to push back stray strands of hair behind her ear. On cue, Elyse turns away, bashful, eyes downcast.

“You... Ah. Don’t do second dates, I take it?” he asks, unable to keep the hope from his voice. 

A moment of silence, before she replies, cold: “Don’t be ridiculous.”

(Just to see his face fall. Just to see the hope in his eyes extinguished, because it's too beautiful to behold.)

Elyse waits a beat too long to reassure him before, finally, she leans over to press a kiss to his lipstick smudged lips. 

“This is _hardly_ a first date, detective. You didn’t even buy me dinner, after all. Shall we say, ah, Thursday at seven?” Her voice is a croon, and burgundy nails tap against his chest, caressing the imprints of her teeth.

He blinks away the disappointment, because she’s beautiful and interested in _him_ , and everything feels _good_.

"Yes," Cullen says, and is surprised that he means it.

 

**b.**

"I'm quite sure he won't be a problem," Elyse says, tartly, pouring him a cup of tea. "Did Erimond not deliver my message?" Her guest is a veritable giant, huge and aged and worn, his face heavily scarred.

He took the cup in hand, his gaze on her disapproving. "He did. But the man has been sniffing about the warehouses again, even after your play. I find the phrase 'complete under control' most often used by those on the _cusp_ of losing control."

Elyse swallowed an insult that died in her throat, and breathed in, amazingly, without a feral snarl. She was a creature wrought of pride and destruction, but even she knew not to cross the head of such a prestigious family.

"Very well. You will simply have to see, as I quite guarantee my success." Elyse leaned back into the plush high back, sipping at her own tea. "The product is arriving at the Halifax warehouse tomorrow evening, correct? He'll be too distracted for any such stake-out, and my agents are prepared to make the deliveries. The portion we are responsible for is one hundred kilos, as discussed."

Corypheus sighed wearily. "As you know, we do not _normally_ deal with those outside of the family, but this pact has _muddied the waters_. I _suppose,_ in this instance, that it seems...Ah.  _Sensible_."

"Yes." She knows she's correct. He cannot simply  _disappear_. While Rutherford is a private eye, he still holds a great number of connections to his previous life. He had been Chief Stannard's star officer before his retirement. It would be...inauspicious, should he turn up missing. 

It would  _prompt questions_ , which none of them wanted.

Corypheus stood, and his guards at the door moved to open it for him. From the doorway, he looked upon her with thinly concealed malice. The light behind him drew great shadows on his face, and for a moment, he looked much like the demon his enemies claimed him to be. "Do not disappoint me, Ms. Trevelyan. The debt to you is paid with his blood, but you must live up to _your_ end of the bargain as well."

 

  **iii.**

 He invites her home after the dinner of the third date, fumbling and cautious. There is no pretense of him presenting new evidence on the wild goose chase of a case she's sent him on. It's awkward. It's  _charming_. She takes his hand and says  _yes,_ of course, and they kiss in the taxi like newlyweds. 

It's proof that it's _working_ , because he's never so aroused as when he's on lyrium. Elyse cradles his heavy head against her bosom, smoothing back his curls, eyes flicking to the watch at his wrist. She had a number of hours to kill, but it wasn't an unpleasant notion.

If she'd been opposed to mixing business with pleasure, then she wouldn't have killed her _last_ two husbands, would she?

She half carries him through the doorway, and he's giggly and eager and _pliant_  just the way she likes him. Perhaps he is fool enough to think it's just how  _love feels_ , but perhaps he knows better. Either way, Cullen Rutherford is in her pocket.

They grind in his apartment, sloppy and heady and  _loud_ and he's lifting her up onto the kitchen counter, kneeling so fast his head spins, head laying against her thigh to recover his breath. In the doorway, she sees another figure, and knows without a doubt that it's the other detective. The partner.  _Samson_.

Elyse meets his gaze and parts her legs, revealing herself to be naked beneath the dress. The underwear is lost in the stairwell, most likely, but it's all the better. She catches his eyes glinting in the dim, his shoulders shaking but he  _stays_ and oh, isn't that interesting?

Cullen buries his face in her sex, eagerly lapping as she'd taught him, letting himself be steered by the tug of hair here or a nudge there, and for a moment Elyse's composure slips, head tilting back with a moan of pure, indulgent pleasure. He  _really_ is quite good at it, all his eagerness to please her in his tongue as he sucks on her clit, tongue caressing the underside of it, cheeks hollowing with light suction. 

"Oh," she breathed, carding fingers through his hair, " _good_."

Men, these days, did often have the inclination to eat a girl out, and that was  _rude_. She grinned at the shadow in the hall, grinding her cunt into Cullen's mouth until she rode two waves of pleasure, the second one leaving Elyse a shaking, gasping wreck. With a fist in his hair, Elyse tugs him up for a kiss, his face shiny from her juices, obvious even in the dim lighting. 

"Do you want to be good?" she croons, tilting his head back, focus honing in on that which was  _hers_.

"Yes," Cullen breathes against her lips, and he does. He always, always does.

(He doesn't have a choice.)

The door slams, and Cullen doesn't even notice.

 _Interesting_.

 

**c.**

It's Florianne, this time, her steely eyes cast around the room, judging it and finding it wanting. "He sends his regards," she says, lofty. "Your agents were _acceptable_ , as is your _boy_." Her nails, varnished in seafoam, click against the mantle. She taps at the glass of a framed picture, right at the breast where Elyse's heart would be.

"Ensure it stays that way."

Elyse smiles politely, but both of them know it is nothing more than for show. It doesn't meet her eyes. Florianne stays just long enough for a frigid tea, with request after request to ensure that Elyse knows who it is, exactly, that's in charge.

After Florianne takes her leave, Elyse closes her eyes and caresses the dagger strapped to her thigh, aching for a kill. Instead, Elyse flings the teapot at a wall, screaming sharply into the empty manor, a tiger slowly learning that _it wants out of its pen._

 

**iv.**

She feeds the lyrium into his hungry veins, her kohl rimmed eyes lidded heavy, mystified. Breath rattles in his chest like a quivering cage, as if the core of him might slip from between the bones and throttle her for what she’s done. Elyse presses a kiss to Cullen’s temple and knows that she’d deserve it if he did.  _Invites_ it. 

Clenched hands twist into her nightgown, and she shushes him. "Calm yourself," she murmurs, "you should know by now it's what I've been dosing you with, or else you are a  _very_ poor detective indeed, Cullen."

He snarls wordlessly, but his lips can't even form the shape of it, not entirely. The drugs have kicked in: he is boneless in her arms, slipping down and down and down into his high, and Elyse pulls away, leaving him askew on his own bed. She collects her clothes, pulling together her outfit of black silk and velour all over again. "I'll be back," she promises, taking his weapons from around the room. The gun, the switchblade, the  _other_ gun. "But it appears I've business to take care of, and rather need you out of sight, out of mind."

She approaches the bed, crouching to be eye level with him, smiling at him quite gently, her eyes vacant. Fingers knot into his hair until he lets out a small sound of acknowledgement, slowly turning his gaze her way.

"You'll be good for my sake, won't you?" Her voice is a dulcet tone, one that he's been trained to respond to. "Nod your head for yes, sweetling."

Cullen groans, but slowly-- so slowly-- acquiesces.

" _Good boy_ ," Elyse croons, pressing red lips to his temple. "You won't remember me, after this, and we'll do this again  _right,_ won't we?"

 

**d.**

Just because Elyse enjoyed working alone, it didn't mean that she was going to take the  _disrespect_ lying down.

She could have torn their empire limb from limb with her bare hands alone, but it was also  _risky_. She had agents all through Corypheus' empire that would extoll her innocence, and all of her records were now at the bottom of some funeral pyre's ashes.

 

And so: she sits in the interrogation room, inspecting her nails.  Her lawyer is demanding full witness immunity for tattling, and Elyse's lips curve upwards.

 

**0.**

"Oh," she says softly, her hair now brown instead of red, sandy and light. Her lips are painted a delicate, pastel pink, and she dresses like a demure waitress should, apron tied in a neat bow behind her. She refills his cup of joe with gentle ease: even her posture has changed. Her new identity has been a  _smashing_ success.

It's no wonder he doesn't recognise her, even with drugs aside. "You just tell me all about it," she says, pityingly clucking her tongue. "I've got all day, and it's real slow. I don't mind."

He laughs, smiling at her sadly. 

"Not much more to tell," he confesses, sipping at his coffee with new-found adoration. It tasted familiar, even if it was halfway across the country, in Kirkwall rather than Skyhold. "She was there and she was gone, just like that. Didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."

She-- Aelice, now, or so says her nametag in a friendly hand-- lays a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. "Drink up," she says, her other hand sliding into her apron pocket, fingering the empty vial lyrium. "It looks like you need it."

**Author's Note:**

> \- elyse helps the sicilian mafia do their drug trade, be it trading, making deals, seducing, coaxing, and killing.  
> \- cullen is a private eye getting too close to the drug market corypheus & co have going on.  
> \- elyse doses cullen with a lyrium concotion when they first go drinking, to make him more pliant.  
> \- elyse does this with intent to get him addicted and more suspectible to being her pet.  
> \- they have sex while cullen is dosed. he wants her, but it is under dubious circumstances. he would have preferred to go slower.  
> \- they continue to have sex while he's dosed, and cullen is conditioned into liking it more than he would, craving it.  
> \- samson watches them once, in the dark, and while elyse is aware, cullen is not.  
> \- elyse wipes parts of cullen's memory, enough that he won't recognize her and she can, after undergoing witness protection, pursue him again.
> 
> Loosely inspired by my desire for a noir AU & this: "The major supply of heroin entering the U.S. came through the "French Connection"--a collaboration between Corsican gangsters in Marseille and the Sicilian Mafia."
> 
> Opening line taken from Lady From Shanghai.


End file.
